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But in places where the soap-weed was not to be found, and chips were scarce, the hunters did their best to supply fuel, and would generally bring home large bundles of wood upon such of the horses as were not carrying game.
To the flower-lover it is the yucca; to the cultivator, or whosoever meddles with its leaves, it is the Spanish-bayonet; to the utilitarian, who values a thing only as it is of use to him, it is the soap-weed ignoble name, referring to certain qualities pertaining to its roots.
The women of the party rejoiced when a clump of soap-weed was discovered, and it was always the occasion of a general wash, as by immersing some of it in water it had all the properties of soap, except that it did not make the lather which distinguishes the real article.
He knew the lava beds, looming gray and dead beneath the foothills; he knew the grotesque rock shapes that seemed to hint of a mysterious past. Nature had not altered her face. On the broad levels were the yellow tinted lines that told of the presence of soap-weed, the dark lines that betrayed the mesquite, the saccatone belts that marked the little guillies.
For the Black One whirled across the flat and up and passed a soap-weed mesa and down across a sandy treacherous plain, then over a grassy stretch where prairie dogs barked, then hid below, and on came Jo, but there to see, could he believe his eyes, the Stallion's start grown longer still, and Jo began to curse his luck, and urge and spur his horse until the poor uncertain brute got into such a state of nervous fright, her eyes began to roll, she wildly shook her head from side to side, no longer picked her ground a badger-hole received her foot and down she went, and Jo went flying to the earth.
She had caught the stealthy movement of the steer; she had glimpsed the unmistakable malignance of his blood-shot eyes, and had stood for an instant in the grip of a dumb, paralyzing terror. She had dismounted to gather some yellow blossoms of soap-weed that had looked particularly inviting from the saddle, and too late she had become aware of the belligerent actions of the steer.
Unlike their ilk of India, they do not practice self-torture for long periods, but only upon a certain day in each year. Then, stripped to the waist, these poor zealots go chanting a dolorous strain, and beating themselves unsparingly upon the back with the sharp-spined cactus, or soap-weed, until they are a revolting sight to look upon.
He was still attired in the ragged clothes tied up with string, and the aged boots he had got Leon to procure for him, to complete his disguise as a Haitian boy. Moreover, while the soap-weed wash at the fisherman's hut had whitened his skin, his face and hands still retained a smoky pallor which would take some time to wear off.
'Now on a line with the top of yonder mesa an' a leetle to the left of that soap-weed; don't you- all see him quiled up thar asleep? "'Which I shorely does, says Jim, locatin' the rattlesnake with his beady eye, 'an' he's some sunk in slumber. Bill, that serpent is our meat. "'Move your moccasins easy, says Bill, 'so's not to turn him out. Let's rustle up some flat cactuses an' corral him.
Also, Stuart realized that anyone whom the Englishman trusted was not likely to be loose-mouthed. "Senor Cecil said you were an American," the fisherman continued, "he meant by that " "Probably he meant that he knew I'd like to get this brown off my skin," declared Stuart, realizing that his disguise was unavailing now. "Have you any soap-weed root?"
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